Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Review: The Bookstore on the Beach by Brenda Novak (Blog Tour)

 


About the Book


The Bookstore on the Beach : A Novel 
Brenda Novak
On Sale Date: April 6, 2021
9780778361053
Trade Paperback
$16.99 USD
448 pages

About the Book

For fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Mary Kay Andrews, comes New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak's newest standalone work of women's fiction, a big, sweeping novel about family and the ties that bind and challenge us. In this novel, three generations of women from the same family share a house and work together at a bookstore in Colonial Beach over the course of a summer.

How do you start a new chapter when you haven’t closed the book on the last one?

Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac’s husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers—she still has no idea where he went or why. After being happily married for twenty years, she can’t imagine moving forward without him, but for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try.

Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort by working alongside her mother and aunt at their quaint bookshop, only to learn that her daughter is facing a life change neither of them saw coming and her mother has been hiding a terrible secret for years. And when she runs into Quinn Vanderbilt—the boy who stole her heart in high school—old feelings start to bubble up again. Is she free to love him, or should she hold out hope for her husband’s return? She can only trust her heart…and hope it won’t lead her astray.

My Review

Mary Langford is delighted when her daughter, Autumn, plans a summer vacation with her children to Mary’s home in  Sable Beach, Virginia.  Autumn and her children have had a difficult time.  Autumn’s husband vanished two years ago.  She has done everything she can to find him, including hiring a private investigator, but no luck.  A summer trip to Sable Beach might be just the thing for this family.

However, the summer is anything but stressfree.  Autumn’s teenage daughter is going through several life changes, while her teenage son has his own issues.  Then, Autumn comes face to face with her old high school sweetheart and discovers her feelings haven’t changed, but what if her husband should return?  To add to Autumn’s troubles, she realizes her mother is hiding something from her.  

This book is filled with quite a bit of family drama.  The characters are well written and realistic.  There are so many different thought-provoking things happening to all the characters.   The storylines feel as if they could be “ripped right out of the headlines”.  I was completely engrossed in this book and was anxious to see how it all wrapped up.  

The Bookstore on the Beach is a riveting virtual getaway.  I hated to see it end.



For reading challenges:
Literary Escapes Reading Challenge 2021 (Virginia)
NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2021

FTC Disclosure: I voluntarily reviewed a free Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review.  All opinions expressed are my own.


About the Author

Brenda Novak, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, has penned over sixty novels. She is a five-time nominee for the RITA Award and has won the National Reader's Choice, the Bookseller's Best, the Bookbuyer's Best, and many other awards. She also runs Brenda Novak for the Cure, a charity to raise money for diabetes research (her youngest son has this disease). To date, she’s raised $2.5 million. For more about Brenda, please visit www.brendanovak.com.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a perfect beach read! Lovely review Yvonne.

    Elza Reads

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonderful beach read! And the family drama only adds to the fun. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the review. Interesting read.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog! I always love reading comments and getting to know my readers!

After some careful consideration, I've decided to become an award-free blog. Although I appreciate and am honored by each and every award I've received, your comments and friendship are enough award for me. Thank you all so much for your thoughtfulness.

Due to way too many spam comments, I disabled the Anonymous User comments. We'll see if this works, otherwise I'll have to go back to word verification.